The OP said "Priston is, or was, singlehandedly responsible for a major percentage of the Chicago's future market." Take out the calculator and just add up ES, ZT and ZN. Just those three account for some pretty big numbers. Your talking Chi ... not East Bumfuck!
When I was at Refco/Mac, everyone was an outright trader. The people that ran the firm wanted guys flipping big size for a tick or two...they wanted commissions. The few times I spoke with him he basically rolled his eyes and laughed when I asked him if he traded the way the firm wanted guys to. I got the impression he did well enough doing things their way, then realized he could make a ton more doing things his way. At that point the guys running the firm weren't going to get in his way. As far as how he traded? I got the impression he traded huge size and legged out of things as they went his way. Not a scalper. I'm sure he doesn't watch the DOM as that game ended a long time ago.
An unverified article was quoted. I don't know how credible that source is, but 8% of any major market seems improbable for any individual. Hamanaka was said to control 5% of world's copper supply, which is a lot smaller than the government debt markets.
OK ... we are on the same page. Microsoft had over 90% of the OS market at one time, John D. Rockefeller had over 90% of the US refining capacity at one point. Liquid world market are huge almost beyond comprehension. No one is going to do 5% of Chi's volume. I think for an individual to do 1% would be tough to sustain for more than a day or two (if that!). Like I said ... we are talking about Chi, the major leagues, not East Bumfuck!
From what I heard, He used to trade about 300,000 contracts per day on the eurodollar futures after he left Refco.
traderchi128 Thank u very much. I've read some many things about refco/mac and priston that you never know what's true or false. Another guy once told me "braveheart" use to trade 4000 eurodollars lots ,that he was a spreader , moved 300k in eurodollars and bonds...which , frankly , I find difficult to believe I really think your info makes more sense and it's more accurate, i mean, trading big size bunds outrights , not spreading. Jordi
Holding 5% of open futures contracts in a market is completely different to doing 5% of the daily volume. If you bought and sold a 300 contract position every minute for the 14 hours the bund trades each day, you could theoretically have traded 500,000 volume without holding more than a 300 contract position. Now that sounds like are hard way to make money but it is actually the easist way to make big profits. You simply identify daily support and resistance levels using your preferred methodology. If you think the market has reached support you place 300 lot orders to buy at the bid until the market moves in your favour. If you think the market has hit resistance, you simply place 300 lot sell positions at the ask until the market moves in your favour. You net position size may fluctuate into several 1000 contracts when you're really confident. But you're always scaling and always position sizing based on the daily action. This is exactly how I trade but with 10 contracts instead of 300.
There's still individuals trading over million lots a month in that London office mainly stoxx. As for watching the DOM game being over I think you need to think again there is still big money being made, well 10-80k eur a day regularly by guy here in my office (not London), he never even looks at charts or pays much attention to the news wires, just watches the stoxx DOM all day long trading in and out. Another makes similar on webice again hates a chart just watches bid/ask, I started in MAC, still punting away. Just under half of my intake are still trading prop everyday 10yrs on, not bad. Priston did same thing as eveyone else, smack size on announcements, fed decision, ecb comments etc but difference was while most got out for 5-20 tics in a matter of seconds he'd run that 1000 lot of tnote or bund for a few hrs or days.
Thanks doublechin for your inside inf So we could say that Priston wasn't a scalper but a day trader and also a swing one. I requires steel nerves to mantain a 2000 bund position for a week... In reference to DOM , many people said Rotter was flipping and faking positions, If you add to this algorithms, etc...you can still believe in what the book trader shows ??